


The Woes of Poor Pining Kacper Neiborski

by firesidebi



Category: Something Dark and Holy Series - Emily A. Duncan
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drunken Shenanigans, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Mutually Unrequited, Sharing a Bed, them as both the disaster trio and serefin/kacper, this fic was created out of the need to have more content for them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24781450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firesidebi/pseuds/firesidebi
Summary: "Kacper was used to Serefin drinking himself silly but that did not make it any easier for him to bear."orTwo idiot boys and their devotion to each other despite all their miscommunication.
Relationships: Serefin Meleski/Kacper Neiborski
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	The Woes of Poor Pining Kacper Neiborski

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really out here having to create my own content for these two. What a shame.

Kacper was used to Serefin drinking himself silly but that did not make it any easier for him to bear. His friend’s habit had started off surprisingly young, maybe around fourteen or fifteen, and hadn’t really ever let up. Sure, there were the periods of time where Serefin had been doing better than usual, these periods usually due to his distance from his father and the comforting presence of him and Ostyia. Sadly these dips into sobriety tended to be shorter than Kacper would have liked them to but he had learned long ago that it was easier to take care of Serefin when he got into his states rather than pick a fight with him about it. 

He had stupidly thought that maybe by the time the three of them left their uber-strict boarding school things would get easier. He thought that maybe if Serefin didn’t have the looming presence of his father haunting him through the halls and teachers itching to find a reason to kick the son of the school’s highest benefactor out that Serefin might actually look into permanently cutting back on the drinking. However, college had made his friend even more indulgent in the burning taste of vodka. Rather than cutting back from the drinking, Serefin had seemed to take his newfound freedom as a sign to completely let loose and drink his weekends away. 

It’s why Kacper finds himself here, hoisting up the left side of his friend while Ostyia takes the right side as they guide him to his and Kacper’s room. 

“I just don’t understand guys,” Serefin whined. 

“What don’t you understand, your majesty?” Ostyia huffed. While Kacper remained sympathetic to Serefin’s present state, Ostyia had never been the biggest fan of babysitting duty. 

“I don’t get it. I don’t get the thing, The thing that you guys were laugh’in at,” he slurred. 

“Kacper,” Ostyia said, peering over her drunken friend’s head to look at him, “Kacper I swear to all that is holy that I will kill him one day.”

“All that’s holy, huh?” Kacper laughed. “Ostyia, you’re the farthest thing from holy so I don’t know who you’re swearing to right now.” 

“Anything and everything,” she huffed. “Come on, we’re almost to your room.” 

Serefin continued to whine about whatever he decided to whine about, Kacper really couldn’t spare much attention to the drunken nonsense. He was too busy unlocking their door to really invest too much time into the rambling. 

“I swear, he wasn’t this bad in high school,” Ostyia grumbled. “It’s like Tranavia flipped a switch in him or something.”

“Or something,” Kacper muttered. He and Ostyia carefully guided Serefin over to his bed, doing their rehearsed parts of removing his shoes and pants before dumping a blanket over his body. Better friends would tuck him in, but best friends had other things to think about. 

“You going to be okay with him?” Ostyia asked.

“I always am,” he beamed. 

Ostyia gave him a levelled look, one that was commonly reserved for a sober Serefin.

“I’m serious,” Kacper said. “We’ll be fine. I’m going to take a quick shower and he’ll most likely be asleep by the time I get out. If he’s not I’ll put on a dumb movie and we can both drift off to sleep. I’ll wake up to the sound of him hurling and all will be right with the world.”

“I’ll kill him if he does anything stupid,” she replied. “He may be my best friend but you are too. And you’re the most sensible out of the three of us but you let him act stupid.”

“I do nothing of the sort!”

She gave him another levelled look.

“Whatever,” Kacper scoffed. “Get out of my room and go to sleep.”

Ostyia raised her hands in surrender. “Okay, whatever you say,” she said as she made her way out of the room. “Just text me if you have any issues, I’ll come whip his ass into shape.”

“Believe me I’m more than capable of doing that myself.”

“Oh I know, I remember your fight in seventh grade. You’ve always been able to hold your own.”

“Goodnight Ostyia.” Kacper laughed. He was still chuckling when he heard the sound of the door close. 

“Did Ostyia leave?” Serefin asked, voice muffled due to him having his face shoved into his pillow. 

“Yes.”

“Good,” his friend huffed. “Now I get to have you all to myself.”

Kacper tried to ignore the flush that was no doubt spreading to his cheeks and let out a soft cough to collect himself. This was the hardest part of dealing with an intoxicated Serefin. As of recently his friend had taken to “subtle” flirtations any time he was drunk and had a moment alone with Kacper. When it had first happened he assumed it would be a one time thing, something that his friend would inevitably forget about in the morning and never do again. Ostyia had not been there to witness Serefin’s embarrassing words and Kacper’s flushed reaction had her laughing at his recounting of the tale later the following morning. However, as the flirting had continued on Ostyia had grown less amused by her drunk friend’s antics. Only she was privy to the knowledge of Kacper’s deep seeded crush on Serefin, and the continued secret flirtations only seemed to make him more self conscious of his actions when Serefin was sober. If Serefin was observant enough while intoxicated to pick up on Kacper’s feelings it could only mean he had figured it out and was now only mocking him. After all, Kacper had known his friend long enough to know that while he may keep his secrets he was never one to hide romantic intentions from anyone. 

“Not for long you don’t,” Kacper said, turning away from his friend to head to his drawer. He quickly grabbed a towel and tuned out Serefin’s mumbled response. No doubt he was attempting to summon the words to express his indignation. “I’m going to go and shower and you are going to go to sleep.”

“But I don’t want to sleep,” drawled the drunken man. “I want to spend time with you.”

“And we’ll have plenty of time to spend together tomorrow,” Kacper assured his friend. “You just need to get some rest first. You’ll be thanking me later for making you.”

“Do you promise Kacper?” Serefin accompanied his question with a slight pout and Kacper resisted the urge to roll his eyes, opting instead to walk over to his friend to brush the muddled locks of hair out of his face. “I promise,” he said. 

Pleased with his response, Serefin grinned and burrowed himself further into his covers. Kacper took this as his opportunity to head towards their bathroom for the shower that he very much needed after a night of brushing shoulders with drunks and cigarette smokers. 

\---

Twenty minutes later Kacper was toweling off his hair and walking back into the room. The shower had been nice and good way to calm the anxiety that was subtly pooling in the bottom of his stomach. Since the drunk flirtations that had been happening more and more as well. Kacper had never imagined himself as the kind of guy who would get so easily bent out of shape around a crush. Surely he never had felt like this about any of his other infatuations. 

“ _That’s cause this is different,_ ” the voice in the back of his mind said. “ _It’s because it’s Serefin._ ”

And he knew that voice was right. Despite all the shit that Serefin had dragged him and Ostyia into, he still was one of Kacper’s best friends. All the unsavory memories involving his friend were outnumbered by the sheer volume of shenanigans and laughter that being with Serefin brought him. They had been through a lot together and Kacper had harbored feelings for his friend so long that he thinks he’s known a life of loving Serefin longer than not loving Serefin. The fact that someone so annoyingly human was placed on the highest pedestal in Kacper’s mind made the idea of Serefin uttering any indication that he reciprocated his feelings sent Kacper into a spiral of emotions. 

“You’re back!” Serefin exclaimed. Kacper jumped, he had been so certain that underneath the mass of covers his friend was sound asleep. 

“I’m back,” he said. He walked over to Serefin’s bedside. “Do you need anything from me?”

“Can you lay down with me?” 

“Serefin,” he sighed. Before he could continue Serefin grabbed his hand and pulled him closer to the edge of the bed.

“Please Kacper?” he whispered. “I promise I’ll go to sleep.”

Kacper snorted. “That’s what you said last time.” What had ensued was a night of Serefin’s incessant chattering and him playing with Kacper’s hair until he threatened to leave the bed. 

“I mean it,” he said. His face took on a grim expression. “Please stay with me.” 

“Why?” Kacper asked, suddenly feeling overwhelmed by the way Serefin was looking up at him. 

“You make it easier,” Serefin said simply. “The nightmares and such...they’re easier to deal with when I know you’re next to me.” 

Kacper studied his friend for a minute. It did not appear that Serefin was bullshitting him at all. In fact, this is the most earnest he had sounded in months while intoxicated. Usually his requests were peppered with comments that were attempts to make Kacper swoon. But tonight… 

“Fine,” Kacper said. “Scooch over.” 

Serefin did so without question and Kacper could see how his friend was attempting to hold back his satisfied smile. Rather than commenting on it, Kacper wordlessly slipped into the bed next to him and tried his best not to squish Serefin up against the wall. Finally, when he was finally situated he turned his head to find Serefin already looking at him. 

“Hey,” he whispered.

Kacper offered him a weak ‘hi’ in return, hoping that would be the end of the conversation. Thankfully, Serefin did not seem too put off by Kacper’s response and seemed to be making good on his promise to go to sleep. He sighed and closed his eyes, shifting his body so that his head was resting under Kacper’s chin.

Kacper could fight him on this. Kacper could raise his voice above the hushed whisper they had both been speaking in a moment ago in order to ask what he thought he was doing. He could ask why Serefin had decided to start acting like this while drunk and treating Kacper and his feelings as another thing to poke fun at. He could let out all the frustration and hurt and the out right adoration that he felt towards the man next to him that he had been bottling up for years. Instead, Kacper let out a sigh of his own and closed his eyes before burying his face into his friend’s dark brown hair.

“I love you Kacper,” Serefin mumbled.

He didn’t know what to make of his friend’s words. They could be meant as another form of mockery towards Kacper, meant to continue on giving him hope that maybe Serefin felt the same. They could be meant as a real admission of feelings, ones that Serefin may or may not remember in the morning and that Kacper would be too awkward to remind him of. Or they could mean the same thing that they have always meant: a thank you for sticking by me at my worst moments. 

“I love you too Serefin,” Kacper whispered. He pressed a small kiss to his forehead and pretended that in the morning something would be different between them. That maybe Kacper would have the guts to talk to Serefin about all of this. Instead, Kacper raised his hand and began stroking up and down Serefin’s back as the two of them slowly drifted off to sleep in each other’ arms. 

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr @firesidebi


End file.
